This week on rabble radio, journalist Wayne MacPhail interviews Deirdre Pike, of the Hamilton Alliance for Tiny Shelters.
Hamilton has found itself in the middle of a housing and homelessness crisis. The Hamilton Alliance for Tiny Shelters, or HATS, is a new project inspired by Kitchener’s ‘A Better Tent City,’ to serve as a temporary solution to the housing crisis in Hamilton by providing small homes for people in need.
In 2020, the City of Hamilton released a report which set a framework on ending chronic homelessness by 2025. But this goal can’t be achieved without concrete plans and real community action. That’s where HATS comes in.
Pike is a senior social planner at the Social Planning and Research Council of Hamilton. Pike speaks with Wayne MacPhail about the challenges the project has faced so far. They discuss what the community has to say about the project, and what services will be available to people who will occupy these cabin community living spaces.
“The way things are moving, we’re not sure if 2025 is going to be a goal that’s met in terms of ‘the end of homelessness,’” Pike says. “If it is, then that should mean small communities like this [The Hamilton Alliance for Tiny Shelters] are temporary and would fold up. But in the meantime, we’re making sure that people don’t live like this next winter … This is really an opportunity to have people live with some dignity and, probably for the first time in many years, an experience that this is their own place.”
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